70-year-old desert shack re-envisioned as transformative artwork

12.6.13 | 3:35am

Stephen King Photography / royale projects

Artist/architect Phillip K. Smith re-envisioned and transformed a 70-year-old weatherbeaten shack at Joshua Tree, Californita into an artwork he calls Lucid Stead. It is “about slowing down and coming to the desert to tap into that pace of change and about stopping and being quiet so you can truly see and listen“.

Steven King Photography / royale projects

Watch the video, below, to see how Smith replaced every other board, the windows and doors with mirrored glass to create a striking structure that blends into and reflects its surroundings.

At night, LEDs within reveal cracks and seams, allowing one to glimpse the internal cross-bracing, turning the cabin into something completely else again.

Steven King Photography / royale projects

Since Lucid Stead is always changing, second by second —with the sun as it travels across the sky into night — reflecting the sublest changes going on around it, all-the-while remaining somehow itself. We can see how it would become a kind of meditation, and love “tap into that pace of change”.

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